Sure, the road was winding but the NBA season has ended up right where we expected at the beginning of the year—Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Boston Celtics in the East and Golden State Warriors vs. Houston Rockets in the West. Those 2018 Conference Final matchups are set to get under way on Sunday, with the series winners set to face off in the NBA Finals.

The Cavs' LeBron James has made short work of the Eastern Conference for nearly a decade. If he topples the Celtics this year—which Cleveland did in last year's conference finals—it'll be his eight consecutive trip to the NBA Finals. Cleveland, despite being a lower seed than Boston, are the favorites in the series. Not that the Celtics are planning to roll over—people have doubted the team the entire playoffs since they're without injured stars Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward.

"Obviously guys have been going down all year. It's like you never know who's going to go down, things like that, but we find a way," Celtics guard Terry Rozier told reporters this week, via ESPN. "We pull together. I'm not saying we're better or not [than last year's team], but we're definitely going back to the Eastern Conference finals, and that's a blessing."

LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers looks on in the first half while playing the Toronto Raptors in Game Three of the Eastern Conference Semifinals during the 2018 NBA Playoffs at Quicken Loans Arena on May 5, 2018 in Cleveland, Ohio. Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

In the West, it'll be interesting to see if the 1-seed Houston—led by stars Chris Paul and James Harden—can actually give Golden State, the defending champions, a run for their money. The Warriors—led by Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant and Draymond Green—are an absolute juggernaut when they're clicking. Golden State coach Steve Kerr wasn't buying some folks who claimed the Rockets have the edge in the series.

"No, I like where we are," Kerr told reporters this week, via ESPN. "Our guys have rings. That's a good position to be in. To me, the hardest championship is the first one, as an individual player and as a team, because you don't know—you don't quite know—if you can do it."

Most folks think James and the Cavs will prevail again in the East. Just three ESPN experts—Chris Forsberg, Bobby Marks and Marc Spears—picked Boston while just one expert at CBS Sports—Colin Ward-Henninger—thought the Celtics will topple Cleveland.

Of course, predictions are often wrong. Here is the TV schedule for the Conference Finals matchups to see what happens for yourself, via NBA.com. (Everything past Game 4 is, of course, if the game is necessary.)